Unless otherwise indicated herein, the materials described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Phase change memory (PCM) is a type of non-volatile memory that takes advantage of the characteristics of a phase change material such as chalcogenide glass to store data. Electrical currents may be applied to create heat that switches the chalcogenide glass between crystalline and amorphous states. Example PCM structures may include an array of cells of phase change material such as chalcogenide glass. Each cell may include electrodes that enable electrical current to be selectively applied for a predetermined duration to create a temperature increase that initiates a state change of the phase change material within the cell. The corresponding change in electrical resistance of the phase change material may be detected and correlated with a particular binary value. In this manner, data may be written and erased from the cells within the PCM structure through the manipulation of the electrical resistance of the material within the cell via the controlled application of heat.
As heat is applied to one cell of an array during an operation, the heat from that cell may transfer, or spillover, to a neighboring cell. This thermal spillover may unintentionally create a phase change within the neighboring cell or otherwise affect the electrical resistance of the material within the neighboring cell in a way as to create ambiguity in the binary value intended for that cell. Moreover, the speed of memory read and write operations of PCM technology is affected by the heating and cooling speeds of the phase change material within the cells, which may be impacted by temperature, and consequently by neighboring cell heat discharge or thermal spillover.